Leader: Flexibility means fat geese for Christmas

Fat geese might be typical at Christmas time but a few financial firms could plump their feathers a little more if they were fast enough to cash in on some heavy online action this Yuletide season.

It's been said before that most banks are too slow to realise the potential of the online payments industry. And that's a shame because there's a further £1.5bn being spent online this December – plenty to fatten the bird a little more.

While some have doomed online retail and banking, claiming people are just too scared to use the internet for trade, the figures are showing otherwise. Analyst Deloitte found that fewer people were scared of being defrauded this Christmas and a further 50 per cent will turn to the web before the big day.

While some have doomed online retail and banking, claiming people are just too scared to use the internet for trade, the figures are showing otherwise.

It would have been a good idea for banks to have had some kind of plan in place for the online onslaught. As analyst Gartner wisely pointed out earlier this year, banks could cash in on the web payments industry by partnering with the likes of PayPal.

After all, banks are experts at checking identities – they've been doing it for years.

Payments firms MasterCard and Visa have already realised that people want reassurance to shop online - they want to feel safe about making bigger purchases.

If banks were to offer their assistance to make consumers feel more safe, PayPal could see the volume of high-value transactions rise considerably.

And more faith in the system means fatter geese for Christmas.